The Lefkowitz Crime Family
The Lefkowitz Crime Family is a Jewish-American crime family, based out of New York City. It was started in 1919 by Harvey "Hairy Harv" Lefkowitz, a Jewish-American born to immigrant parents. He started up a small gang of his local friends after his service in World War 1, and then the gang expanded exponentially throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The family is still very active, and is one of the most powerful criminal organizations in America. History Harvey Yussell "Hairy Harv" Lefkowitz was born in Syossett, New York, on August 9th, 1895, to parents Eidel Guggenheim, of Latvian, Hungarian, Romanian, Estonian, Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, German, Russian, Belgian, Austrian, Turkish, Norwegian, Spanish, Irish and Ukranian heritage, from Warsaw, Poland and of the Ashkenazim Bobov Sect Hasidic Orthodox kind of Jew, , and his father Amnon Lefkowitz, from Prague, Czechoslovakia, of Czech, Slovakian, Finnish, Swedish, Dutch, Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, French, Serbian, English, Moldavan, Swiss, Georgian, Scottish, Croatian and Danish origin, and also a Ashkenazim Jew, they raised their son in the Lower East Side, of Manhattan. Harvey grew up in a very strict, religious upbringing, speaking mostly Hebrew and Yiddish, going to the local yeshiva, celebrating Sabbath and being a good Jew for his parents. But Harvey, by age 9, was developing quite the criminal resume, with his local gang of young Jewish friends. One time, the local gangsters in the neighborhood, like Monk "Mr. Kindness" Schaal, helped out Harvey and his father with a cash envelope, to help their struggle, since he understood. It was this that was the catalyst for Harvey to run his gang. When World War 1 broke out, Harvey was working at a Brooklyn Naval Yard, with his friends Henry Rosenfeld, Benjamin Golombek, Avraham Herzog, Michael Kauffman, Frederick Briskman and Ethan "Vulcan" Klein. They saw the war as an opportunity to sell scraps and other various objects to people. This was Harvey's first real business venture, and within a year of World War 1, he was making great money off this. His friend, Michael Kauffman, started his own gang, but Harvey remained good friends with him and was a close ally to Kauffman throughout their criminal careers. A year before the US entered the war, Harvey and his friend Henry began setting up card games in the back of Henry's uncles food market, giving a cut to everyone who was involved. Monk Schaal, the Jewish kingpin of New York, grew fond of Harvey and his growing gang, and let him under his wing. But soon, the US would enter World War 1, and Harvey left to join up with the Army. The changing of the guard Harvey would do his time, fighting in the trenches at France and winning himself a purple heart. Once the war was over, he moved back to New York, settling down in Brooklyn and leaving the Army. Soon, he was back to old tricks, running card games and soon he would start running whores, extorting local businesses and robbing houses. The business became solid, and Harvey was a growing presence in the underworld. Soon, by early 1919, Harvey broke away from Monk Schaal's control, and started up his own gang. Schaal didn't take kindly to this, and put out a hit on him. Harvey, aware of this, worked his way around it. Meshullam Lupoliansky, Schaal's underboss, was unhappy with how Schaal was running things. He agreed to a hit on Schaal with Lefkowitz, and Schaal was murdered by Lupoliansky's hitmen on April 15th, 1919, outside of a theater in Ozone Park, Queens. Lupolioansky, now a close ally of Lefkowitz, worked with him on their new drug and gun businesses. Moving guns in and out of the city, Lefkowitz sent out a faction to Philadelphia, which would become the second base of Lefkowitz operations. There, in Philly, the Fishgold gang, led by Rahmiel Fishgold, a big-time gun runner, allied with Lefkowitz. Soon, Lefkowitz had major allies in the Italian mafia, as well. Things were looking bright for Harvey and his gang. But soon, prohibition would bring out the worst war in the Jewish mob's history, with 8 major gangs involved and dozens of deaths, that would go on for 4 years. Prohibition and the Yid War With the beginning of Prohibition saw the rise of competition between the various gangs in the US. Rival Jewish gangs, like the Barkat crime family, led by Dennis Barkat, became a serious threat to the power of the Lefkowitz family. The first real confrontation, in the middle of June in 1920, outside of a warehouse in Philadelphia, occurred between Harvey's lieutenant, Jonathan Kolmel, and his crew, who robbed the warehouse of it's alcohol, from Barkat's lieutenant, Jesse Isaac. This set off the beginning of a major war, in which all of Lefkowitz allies would be involved and all of Barkats allies would be too. Business was fine for Lefkowitz, who worked with mostly Jewish gangsters such as Lupoliansky, Fishgold and Kauffman, and made a fine living off it. Daily shipments of liquor, from air, land and sea, came in, as Lefkowitz set up major operations across New York, Philadelphia, Boston and New Jersey. A speakeasy in Newark, called Big Ben's Playpen, was a notorious front for Lefkowitz, and was ran by his right-hand man, Ethan "Vulcan" Klein, with it being operated on a daily basis by Benjamin "Benny Sunshine" Golombek, a member of Lefkowitz inner circle. While business was affected by the war, Lefkowitz and his allies still found a way to make money. Barkat struck back a week later, hi-jacking Lefkowitzs' shipments in upstate New York, while killing two of his soldiers, Ishmael "Sil" Silberstein and Thomas "Birdy" Paliakov in the process.